Local newspaper journalists a disappearing breed

They are shedding 20 more editorial jobs at my local paper the Eastern Daily Press. Must be a high proportion of jobs, as I guess there are only just over a 100 editorial posts at the company Archant anyway.

Couldn't help wondering how many public relations professionals there now are compared to journalists? The ratio of people wanting to create news, compared to those wanting to find out and write about it.

My guess is that there are thousand more PRs now trying to talk to local newspaper journalists - who are working ever harder, with less time to find stories and get out and meet people.

Indeed, Archant suggested that shedding journalist jobs would enable them to 'consolidate' editorial coverage - especially in the digital economy. Also, they suggest that in future journalists will be out in the community more.

Again. I'm wondering how this might happen? Perhaps local village correspondents (hopefully not unpaid, although I fear they might be) will become more important contacts for PRs than local journalists? Liz Hollis

How to come up with ideas

Ideas are currency for freelance writers. Googling around about better ways to come up with better ideas, I found a tip from Weinburg (with no first name reference unfortunately). It is called the 'fieldstone method'. She or he suggests that if you collected two or three interesting looking stones a day you could eventually build a wall. The analogy is that you should collect ideas in the same way with the aim of leading to bigger and better ideas. They suggest you make a note of two or three things a day that interest or bother you as you go about your day. Eventually, you will start seeing patterns as ideas coalesce (what a great word that is) around some central themes. Creativity and innovation are not about coming up with something completely new in a vacuum, Instead ideas build from other ideas and over time, thanks to your gathering of daily jottings about things that interest/bother you, you will eventually see a trigger for an even bigger idea - a feature, book, programme, website, business idea. Good luck.